As he is
by Aldesina
Summary: But she is leaning forward, those soft red lips that touched his only moments ago are returning with her. Perhaps another kiss? Oh yes! That is the only thing that could make him happier.


**As he is**

by

**Aldesina**

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><p>Disclaimer: I don't own a single thing; just love the show and its characters.<p>

Author's Note: I certainly hope this is an original idea for this short story. I've read just about every Rumbelle fanfiction on ffn and so far I don't think this scene has been viewed this way. *Fingers Crossed!*

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><p>.<p>

"_Kiss me again, it's working!"_

.

Rumpelstiltskin can barely hear what Belle is saying. The kiss, oh such a kiss!

He'd never imagine sharing a kiss, any kiss ever again, much less one filled with such hope and tenderness. Her hands wrap themselves around his face and he's drawn out of his thoughts and back to the woman before him.

.

Belle looks so happy, the soft firelight glittering in her eyes, no… that was her inner fire that he saw, happy and… triumphant? He struggles to say something to her, his mind is full of questions. She came back to kiss me? Why would she come back just to kiss me? And suddenly he hears what she said to him… Working?

.

"_What is?" _

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Belle's smile grows as she cradles his face between her hands. Rumpelstiltskin finds it hard to concentrate again. He feels so strange, light and airy, and his heart is beating so quickly it's about to explode out of his chest. He's sure that Belle could hear it thundering beneath his breast. Feel its beat under her fingertips which were still soft and white despite the hard labor that he put her to day after day. She still smells like the rose that he gave her earlier that afternoon. The scent clings to her and he breathes it in; taking in the fragrance of that wondrous flower through her skin. He'll buy her a dozen roses, a dozen, dozen. He won't even magic them from unwitting fools. He'll use the gold so hard spun from his hours sitting in front of his wheel. Belle will smell like roses forever, if she'll have them.

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Rumpelstiltskin decides that he couldn't be happier. If the world stopped right now around them he could be content. Nothing could make this moment better. But she is leaning forward, those soft red lips that touched his only moments ago are returning with her. Perhaps another kiss? Oh yes! That is the only thing that could make him happier.

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"_Any curse can be broken"_

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Rumpelstiltskin goes cold.

.

Curse?

.

She means to break his curse?

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Belle, _his Belle;_ who had never before shunned him. His appearance hadn't seemed to matter, from the green and gold of his scaly skin, to his crooked blackened teeth and stringy, coarse hair.

.

She never once adverted her eyes, or cowered when he loomed above her.

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She had told him that he wasn't as ugly as he thought.

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She had batted her blue eyes becomingly at him from beneath her long feathery lashes.

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She wants to change him.

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And Rumpelstiltskin's fragile happiness is destroyed.

.

Belle is no different than the rest of them.

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His wife; whom he fled the battlefield for when he heard news that she was pregnant. He never even stopped to think that he had been away at war for over 2 years. Never once had he gone home to see her; he was a loyal soldier in the Ogre Wars. She left him and their son without a backwards glance when the village healer had confirmed that he would be lame for life.

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His son; whom he had set the duke's castle aflame for, cursed himself for. He left too. Fear in his eyes for what his father had become, and Shame at the knowledge of his father's flight from the battlefield. The soldiers' taunts had sunk in deep and achieved their desired effect.

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No.

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Not again, he would not change for her. Not again for anyone. And it was obvious that she would not have him as he was.

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"_Who told you that? Who knows that?"_

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So Rumpelstiltskin ranted and raged to hide his anguish. He grabbed her, shook her hard. She who wanted him to change, and threw her back in the cell that he had tossed her in upon her arrival. He smashed his cabinet of treasures; breaking all the trinkets that he held dear, each one gained through his carefully executed deals. He smashed it all to dust using a wooden staff not unlike the one that he used to lean on when he was lame. And that tea set, the one that she had chosen to serve him with that first night. He smashed that too; relishing the sound of the delicate porcelain shattering against his marble column.

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His hand closed around the last cup and something nicked his thumb. He looks down and it's the one she's chipped.

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He tries, but his muscles won't let him. All Rumpelstiltskin wants to do is launch that wretched cup into oblivion, banishing the memory of Belle kneeling in her golden ball gown forever.

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And can't. So he does what he does best, and formulates a solution.

.

.

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His solution is simple.

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He is no longer the man that he was. _He has changed._ And so the situation will change just like him, for once it will suit his purposes, be bent to his will. She will not be another one to leave him, she will not be given a choice. And he will no longer be left alone with the pain in his heart of yet someone else not accepting him. If she will not accept him _cursed_, he will not accept her at all. Rumpelstiltskin's determination grows as he makes his way back down to the dungeons. Never again will anyone not accept him as he is. Never.

.

.

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End file.
